Analysts Discuss Google Exit from China

Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said it's not so simple to
quantify.
"I don't know what Android-based device sales are like in China,
but I expect Android would be a very, very meaningful player there,"
Golvin said. "Android as [an open-source]
platform is attractive because it's cheap and it's free, so it's natural that
phone OEMs would adopt it there."

Where it gets dicey, Golvin said, is the difference between an "Android
phone" and an "Android with Google phone." To date, Android
phones are being sold in the United States
with the Google branding on the device, which means Gmail, Google Maps, Google
Talk and Google Voice are bundled in the phone.

"Google's potential departure from the Chinese market doesn't affect-careful
wording here-Android as a platform for phone makers, but for the delivery of
Android handsets that carriers want to sell and enable Google Web services on,
yes, absolutely you wouldn't be able to access all of those Google back-end
services." Golvin said.
Golvin did agree with Enderle that Google could get a proxy to handle all of
the Google Web services for Android devices in China.
That wouldn't solve only Google's problems. Google currently only sells the
Nexus One through its Webstore. If Google leaves China,
consumers wouldn't be able to purchase the smartphone in China,
where Google planned to sell the device online as it does in the United
States.
Moreover, Golvin said that if Google leaves China
it would kill the so-called "gray market," where consumers buy a
Nexus One, take it to China
and fit it with a SIM card from China
Mobile. "However it behaved would be completely unpredictable," he
said.
Google doesn't have answers either. Asked about the impact of a Google exit
from China on
Android, a Google spokesperson told eWEEK, "We will be meeting with the
Chinese government over the coming weeks and hope to find a mutually agreeable
resolution, so it's too early to speculate."
Many questions clearly cloud the viability of Android software and Google
Web services in China,
but there is also the hardware manufacturing side to consider. Chinese handset
makers Huawei and ZTE support Android and the country's Lenovo introduced
LePhone at CES 2010.
Smartphones form the crux of the Android movement, but Google and partners
have designs for the platform beyond handsets.
Chinese-based computer makers such as Asus and Acer have Android-based netbooks in the pipeline, and there is
talk that these companies are considering making machines with Google's Chrome
Operating System.
Any souring of the relationship between Google and China's
government extends to the business sector there, which would quash the
extension of Android from smartphones to other computing form factors.